Scars
by purpleswans
Summary: Every scar has a story. My contribution to Almei week 2014.


**Hey! This is my first contribution to Almei week. The prompt is Scars. I started this fic thinking I would be going one way, but ended up going somewhere else, but it still ended up pretty well in my opinion. I will admit though, I have never written any pure romance, so just warning you if it is to cheesy. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. **

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Scars

Alphonse Elric was no stranger to difficult pasts. His mother had died when he was young, and he had lost his body performing an illegal transmutation to bring her back. His brother was a dog of the military who had given up his Alchemy to get Al's body back. His childhood friend lost her parents in the Ishvalan war of extermination. His two best friends were ex-military human-based chimeras. General Mustang and Hawkeye were haunted by what they had done in Ishval. His own father had watched an entire civilization be destroyed by the transmutation that had extended his life.

In some cases, nobody would know about those pasts unless you really knew the person. Nobody walked around with a big sign saying "something sad happened to me years ago" in bold letters. Usually people don't want to talk about things like that, so it doesn't come up in normal conversation.

But sometimes there are signs. People will have something missing, like a parent, arm, or leg. Nobody had ever asked, but it was obvious that the Fullmetal Alchemist hadn't had the easiest childhood. Lan Fan's automail was an obvious sign to everyone in Xing that something had happened when the Yao prince was in Amestris.

When Alphonse first got his body back, it had been obvious to everyone that something had happened, though few people knew all the details. He had been incredibly thin and weak. He couldn't walk more than a few steps by himself. It had been several months of therapy before he could do something as basic as walk the few miles from the train station to Winry's house. It took 2 years for his body to be back to normal. Nowadays, it was impossible to tell there had ever been anything wrong with his body.

In a way though, Alphonse felt like his body could have been worse. After everything with the Promised day, he had taken some time to look over his old body of empty armor. The decorative paint was almost gone, the limbs were falling off, and the entire body was covered in dents and scratches. If his real body had gone through the same things, it would probably be in even worse shape than it actually had been. And that wasn't even considering all the times Edward had been required to reconstruct his body with Alchemy.

As it was, despite everything that he had gone through, Alphonse's body didn't have many scars. Sure, there were some left over from his childish mishaps before he and Ed had tried to revive their mother, but they didn't count. Scars are supposed to tell a story, and the most important stories Al had to tell all happened during his days as an empty suit of armor.

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It had been about a month since Alphonse Elric had come to Xing, and he still wasn't any closer to learning Alkahestory. He was having a hard time learning the Xingese language, and very few Alkahestrists knew Amestrian or wanted a translator sitting in on lessons. Not to mention, there was a part of himself that couldn't forget his promise to a certain princess, that he would come to her for Alkahestory lessons.

One night, when Jerso and Zampano were fighting over the last bowl of noodles (how those two could eat so much he would never know), Alphonse decided to go for a walk around the area they were staying. It wasn't exactly the safest part of town, but they had been staying there for a while, and Alphonse was very capable of protecting himself. Plus, most of the locals who had gotten past the shock of a foreigner being in their midst had warmed up to Alphonse.

As he walked, Alphonse tried to get the frustration of his inability to learn Alkahestory out of his mind by people watching. He saw a street vendor on the corner, and debated using his pitiful Xingese to buy something. He saw a young couple holding hands, pure joy on their faces as they enjoyed their time together. He saw a group of kids running around the street stop and look under a box before giggling and running the other way.

_I wonder what's under that box,_ Alphonse wondered, and he decided to go see what had temporarily distracted the children.

He lifted the box, and was surprised to find a baby panda. One of the major culture shocks Al had dealt with once he got to Xing was the existence of Giant Panda Bears. The very first Panda he had ever seen was Xiao-mei, who he had originally believed to be a cat. As it turns out, Xiao-mei wasn't a cat. As a matter of fact, Pandas grew up to as large as the grizzlies Al knew in Amestris. In the back of his mind, Al wondered whether Xiao-mei had grown up yet, or had something kept her from growing.

Despite the knowledge that this creature would grow up into a large animal, Al couldn't help but feel the same kind of pity for this baby panda as he did for every stray cat he found in Amestris. Without thinking, he reached his hand out to pet the panda...

The creature bit his finger. Hard.

It took all of his self-control to keep Alphonse from squealing like a little girl. That bite _hurt_. For all its inconveniences, the one good thing about his armored body had been the fact that it couldn't feel pain.

Somehow, Al managed to disconnect the creature's jaw from his index finger and gather it into his arms. Despite the fact that the panda wasn't the most grateful at the moment, it was against Al's nature to leave a poor, abandoned animal in the street if he could help it. If nothing else, it would serve as a distraction from his frustrations. When he determined that it wasn't going to try and run away any more, Al started to head back to the inn he had been staying at for a while.

A few blocks away from their intended destination, the panda suddenly started to wiggle until Al was forced to release the creature. He could do nothing but chase after it as it ran away.

"Xiao-mei!"

Al stopped in his tracks. He knew that voice. It had been two years, but he could never forget that voice. It was coming from a young Xingese woman, who until a few moments ago had been speaking to a police officer.

A young woman Al recognized as May Chang.

"Alphonse? Alphonse Elric, is that you?"

Al shook himself out of his shock and smiled. "Yeah, it's me. It's been a while, May."

She smiled back. "it sure has been. How is the Alkahestory training going?"

Al grimaced at the reminder. "Eh, well you see..."

"Oh my goodness, your finger!"

Al looked at what May was worrying about. The place where Xiao-mei had bitten him was bleeding, but not at the point where Al was worried he would die or something.

"Quick, let me get out my chalk and I'll heal you. You don't want it to scar, do you?"

Al look at the injury, and shook his head. "Don't bother, I don't mind a little scar"

After all, every scar had a story. And this one would be how he had reunited with May Chang.

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